Phone Intake Assessment Collection Notice

St Vincent's Health Australia Limited ABN 75 073 503 536. You can contact us: 

• by email to privacyofficer@medicarementalhealthcheckin.gov.au
• by post to:
  Group General Manager Public Affairs & General Counsel
  St Vincent's Health Australia
  Level 22, 100 William Street
  WOOLLOOMOOLOO NSW 2011
• by telephone on (02) 9367 1100.

When our Phone Intake Assessment practitioners call potential help seekers, we may collect:

• your personal contact details, including your name, post code and phone number, emergency contact or next of kin and if applicable, your general practitioner;
• information relevant to your clinical assessment and referral to ensure you are connected with an appropriate service – this may include information about your health history, family history, past and current treatments, lifestyle factors, symptoms and care, and other information which assists our clinical staff to provide appropriate care.

For completeness, our practitioners may be shadowed by senior practitioners when performing these Phone Intake Assessments.

We collect your personal information in order to for our practitioners to perform a clinical assessment to determine the level of care required and connect you with the Service, or other relevant services or service navigation services if the Service is deemed not to be suitable.  We also collect your personal information for other purposes as disclosed in our Privacy Policy, including to comply with our obligations under our contract with the Department, and as otherwise permitted or required by law.

The Department may use your personal information to check whether we are complying with our obligations, manage complaints (but, for so long as we are providing the Service, only where the complainant has consented to the release of their personal information to the Department), exercise its rights under its contract with us, and take over responsibility for providing the Service and Website (see the Privacy Policy for more details about how the Department will handle personal information it receives).

Your personal information will be used to send you communications:

• to assess the level of care required and connect you with relevant services or service navigation services if the Service is deemed unsuitable for you;
• to contact you for assessment and with information about your proposed care;
  • in connection with the Service (for example, newsletters or service updates) where you have explicitly opted in. You can opt out of these communications at any time.

We may disclose your personal information:

• to our service providers (including professional advisers);
• to medical and other healthcare professionals involved in your care;
• to persons such as a carer or family member that you may choose to involve in your use of the Services;
• to anyone authorised by you to receive your personal information (which may include other health services) (your authorisation may be express or implied);
• to crisis or emergency services where we reasonably believe it is necessary to prevent a serious threat to the life, health or safety of you or another individual or public health and safety;
• to other Australian Government funded services within Medicare Mental Health to ensure you are offered a service appropriate to your care needs; and
• as otherwise permitted or required by law.

Under our contract with the Department, we may be required to disclose your personal information to the Department and others, including:

• by transferring your health information to another health service provider when directed to do so by the Department, so long as compliance with such a direction is not contrary to any applicable law;
• to manage complaints (but we will only disclose your personal information to the Department as a complainant with your consent unless otherwise permitted by law);
• to meet our reporting, audit and access obligations under that contract;
• in connection with the Department exercising various rights under that contract, and in connection with transition of the Service and the Website to the Department or its nominee when our contract ends; and
• so that the Department can oversee the Service and conduct or commission evaluation and other research activities in relation to the Service (see the Privacy Policy for more details).

We and the Department may also de-identify your personal information, and use and disclose it for a range of purposes. These purposes may include to improve the Service and Website, for quality assurance and evaluation of the Services, and for medical research and training purposes.

We may invite you to participate in optional and additional evaluation and research activities in relation to the Services, which may be on an identifiable basis, to the extent that your contact details, such as name and email address, may be used to notify you of this opportunity. Your participation in any such evaluation and research activities is entirely voluntary. These evaluation and research activities may be run by third parties engaged by the Department, in which case:

• we are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties, and we encourage you to review their privacy policy and disclosures once you are invited to participate in any follow-up evaluation or research activities; and
• if you choose to participate in these activities, we may disclose certain personal information about you to those third parties, as described at the time we invite you or as you subsequently give your consent for. There will be a follow-up email for you to opt-in to (identifiable) evaluation activities by third parties.

We store your personal information in Australia, on the Primary Mental Health Care Information System (PMHCIS). PMHCIS is a secure, web-based application designed to streamline clinical workflows by managing referrals, helpseeker intake and assessments and reporting. PMHCIS is externally managed by North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network (NWMPHN); please see NWMPHN's Privacy Policy for further details.

We do not disclose your personal information to overseas recipients.